Joe Konrath issues challenge to fisk his latest blog entry or any of his blog entries.

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Oh, I see he quoted me...I suppose that makes me a pinhead to him. How flattering. I shall have a t shirt made. (ETA: Where's my attribution, huh? huh? )

It's an opinion. He's allowed one, same as I'm allowed mine. Oh well.

I see he asks us to respond to his points etc*. Can't be arsed, tbh. If he wants to do this, that's great. If other people want to listen to him, that's their prerogative. My only point was this: If you want to self publish, read widely about it. He says that AW is all 'Nyah nyah', but he's nothing but 'rah rah'. You (proto-self-publishing person) need to see all POVs on this.

Read. Learn. Make up your own mind.

*ETA I did respond to ask that IF he's going to quote me, he should include the most salient part, which I then added.

Last edited by Mr Flibble; 05-19-2012 at 04:50 PM.

"Fade to Black is a dynamic and original introduction to a world and character that promise further exciting stories". British Fantasy Society

The series has grown in complexity since the beginning, reaches a profoundly moving conclusion that is both unexpected and entirely satisfying - Publisher's Weekly

Publishing Culture is guaranteed to end, and when it does everyone will be better off.

Well, everyone except the gatekeepers. But don't cry for them. They never cried for you.

I think I'll just keep being stupid, as being stupid in pursuing a stupid traditional writing career via trade and journal publishing is what will help my stupid writing career so I can win the stupid Orange Prize and make stupid money.

When this guy learns how to write a succinct, focused, non-ranting journal entry, I'll give him another shot.

I don't have time to read 3400 words of crazy.

Yup.

I think he has a point in that writers should really think about contracts etc. He's taken a contract from Amazon which he finds appealing. Others may well find contracts with Big Six appealing, for their own reasons. That's up to them, and I lose him when he bashes authors who are taking a contract that works for them.

Sadly any good points are lost in a landslide of:

"Fade to Black is a dynamic and original introduction to a world and character that promise further exciting stories". British Fantasy Society

The series has grown in complexity since the beginning, reaches a profoundly moving conclusion that is both unexpected and entirely satisfying - Publisher's Weekly

Pretty sure he was banned awhile back. Came and spouted some pretty nasty insults at the mods in the self-publishing forum, if I remember correctly. I could be wrong on that, though. He might have just been given a time out.

ETA: Just correcting myself to say I looked it up and he wasn't, so it was just a time-out. But yeah, he's here. He pops in sometimes.

Also? He's an not really in a position to pontificate regarding the history of publishing; publishing has at least a 3,000 year old history. It's still working just fine. The current publishing paradigm works so well that if I want to read something by Konrath, I have to look for it; I'm otherwise protected from his ramblings.

Seems like a great way to drum up site-traffic to this blog. I don't know the guy. Don't read his blog or posts or books (except glancing at his page for a few minutes now). If he's found a model that works for him, great. I read one post where he yells at his readers to get the F off his blog and websites and message boards and just WRITE, and then he baits people into coming to his website to debate with him?

Maybe he has a blog-monkey to do the net stuff for him.
Maybe he has a clone.

I dunno. I never took to people thumping their chest on the internet in hopes of getting into an epic pissing contest. I'll pass. The people on this board (minus the few asshats which every board has) are pretty damn helpful and thoughtful. You get out of the board what you "put in," in terms of reading and educating yourself.

Again, don't read this guy's stuff. It could be that the more I read him, the more I agree with him. I'm just not interested seeing the few internet tantrums he's already had. Doesn't seem very professional to me. Maybe it's my loss.

This is a classic case of someone believing their own hype. I have no interest in anyone with such blinkers on and this is him blowing more hot air about the evils of every way but how he tells people to publish. A route he doesn't follow himself.

I would love his sales but not his crazy distorted opinion of how he achieved them.

I wonder how good his sales are, since he keeps stirring up the blog pot to get more readers. When I first heard about him, I was impressed with his story (if not his actual writing). The more I read of his rants, the less I care.

Self-publishing works for some people, if they can spend the time on promotions. Ol' Joe lucked out because he already had street cred from his work with Hyperion. I guarantee you, his results are not typical. Folks who will not get rich off multi-level marketing, real estate, gold sales, Mary Kay, or Amway will not get Konrath-style returns from self-publishing. Not in the current economy.

Now, there's still a lot I don't like about the Big Six model, and even some of the standard operating procedures from the smaller, nimbler trade publishers. But I'm currently working with an e-pub for a niche market piece, and will be working with a 'tradtional' agent to sell some mainstream SF&F. I'm looking at self-publishing as a sales tool linked with those other efforts, not as a replacement.